When we help people, it's because we benefit from it in some way, even if it's the satisfaction and joy from helping someone.

So, is there no such thing as altruism?

"[...] even if it's the satisfaction and joy from helping someone."

That is altruism, isn't it?

Leohan wrote:

Interesting topic! Count me in!

In my opinion? No. Altruism is not a thing. Every action that any living being ever attempts is because said living is expecting a result that will prove beneficial to their environment. This can be the immediate environment (I have to work because I will receive my pay and I'll be able to buy an I-Phone) a more distant environment (I have to recycle because if I don't then any moment now the whole World will be a dumpster) or any layer in between. That does include helping other people. You do it because you will feel better with yourself doing it, because you want those people to think better of you, because you want to tell someone else at some point and want that other person to think better of you or, in some cases, because you expect repayment from either an afterlife or karma.

Of course this is absolutely oversimplified, but that's my general perspective. Not a human thing either. Every single living being lives this way, unless perhaps you are mentally ill and your actions have no expected reaction at all.

If you help someone as a consequence of your empathy for that someone, that isn't altruism?

"It wasn't altruism because you feel better when other people feel better," is a really bizarrely exclusive notion of what constitutes selflessness. There are clinical diagnoses for people who do not possess emotional empathy. In popular culture we usually call them psychopaths or sociopaths.

EDIT: Of course, that's my opinion, but I think this is ultimately an argument of semantics. My reaction is dependent on my notion of what altruism is. I think that's probably all we really disagree on, but I can't be certain.

"It wasn't altruism because you feel better when other people feel better," is a really bizarrely exclusive notion of what constitutes selflessness. There are clinical diagnoses for people who do not possess emotional empathy. In popular culture we usually call them psychopaths or sociopaths.

People with no empathy would be sociopaths.

And well, as I said, it goes more complex. Look: Most times it's not really about feeling better by etc, etc. It's about a personal reassurance of your morality. Mostly everyone wants to see themselves as good people, but in order to do that some of their actions have to be either justified to fit their morality or they need to act with the sole purpose of reassuring it. Doing the second one is as close as we can get to altruism, but at the end of the day it's self-interested.

The philosophies of Buddha and Dragon are very much centered around balance and moderation. Xanthe's is anything BUT. She's an extremist who views the world as black and white, (with her point of view being White and everyone else's is not) and extremists like that tend to not get along with moderates.

I think it's QUITE fitting that Buddha and Dragon haven't appeared in the comic in a while. The introduction of the Patriarchy and Sisterhood has taken the strip into a very extremist direction. Their more moderate positions just don't fit in the world as it currently exists.

The philosophies of Buddha and Dragon are very much centered around balance and moderation. Xanthe's is anything BUT. She's an extremist who views the world as black and white, (with her point of view being White and everyone else's is not) and extremists like that tend to not get along with moderates.

I think it's QUITE fitting that Buddha and Dragon haven't appeared in the comic in a while. The introduction of the Patriarchy and Sisterhood has taken the strip into a very extremist direction. Their more moderate positions just don't fit in the world as it currently exists.

Um, no. In universe, this has already been disproven:

Reader1 wrote:

these two seem very similar

_________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

OK, that's it. Between yesterday's strip (repeating a joke he already used not so long ago; heck, it was not even a good joke) and today's one (a direct attack to some users that were posting past strips) this webcomic has died to me. From today I'll stick with Giselle Lagace's webcomics. So, goodbye Sinfest, you are no longer the partner I once knew. Goodbye Tat, I hope you don't fall anymore coz you'll be underground. And goodbye to a couple of single-minded-idiots I've met in these forums; you know who I'm talking about.

The philosophies of Buddha and Dragon are very much centered around balance and moderation. Xanthe's is anything BUT. She's an extremist who views the world as black and white, (with her point of view being White and everyone else's is not) and extremists like that tend to not get along with moderates.

I think it's QUITE fitting that Buddha and Dragon haven't appeared in the comic in a while. The introduction of the Patriarchy and Sisterhood has taken the strip into a very extremist direction. Their more moderate positions just don't fit in the world as it currently exists.

Nothing you said about Xanthe is actually correct. If you think advocating choice and equality is extremism, I don't know how to help you. That is balance.

And what is all this noise about Xanthe needing to "mellow out?" She's been fairly even-tempered, albeit resolute, in most strips. She isn't as chill as Criminy or Buddha, but few people are.

LarsenSan wrote:

OK, that's it. Between yesterday's strip (repeating a joke he already used not so long ago; heck, it was not even a good joke) and today's one (a direct attack to some users that were posting past strips) this webcomic has died to me. From today I'll stick with Giselle Lagace's webcomics. So, goodbye Sinfest, you are no longer the partner I once knew. Goodbye Tat, I hope you don't fall anymore coz you'll be underground. And goodbye to a couple of single-minded-idiots I've met in these forums; you know who I'm talking about.

Larsen is such an attention seeker. Who posts just to let everyone know you've stopped reading?

OK, that's it. Between yesterday's strip (repeating a joke he already used not so long ago; heck, it was not even a good joke) and today's one (a direct attack to some users that were posting past strips) this webcomic has died to me. From today I'll stick with Giselle Lagace's webcomics. So, goodbye Sinfest, you are no longer the partner I once knew. Goodbye Tat, I hope you don't fall anymore coz you'll be underground. And goodbye to a couple of single-minded-idiots I've met in these forums; you know who I'm talking about.

Larsen is such an attention seeker. Who posts just to let everyone know you've stopped reading?

When we help people, it's because we benefit from it in some way, even if it's the satisfaction and joy from helping someone.

So, is there no such thing as altruism?

Depends; are you asking that of someone who is altruistic, or not?
My real point: there is indeed behavior that can be interpreted as altruistic, but whether it truly is altruistic or whether it is merely disguised selfishness will depend very much on the viewpoint of whom you ask; altruism, per se, is not an objective thing.

LarsenSan wrote:

butt-hurt whining, but a cute pic

Well, you know what they say: "Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya!"_________________I am only a somewhat arbitrary sequence of raised and lowered voltages to which your mind insists upon assigning meaning

What I'm postulating is that every living thing, human or otherwise, that actively performs an action is expecting a reaction that would benefit them in some way._________________Welcome to Sinfest, the only place with a 46 pages long thread about sentient toasters